A look through the BBC Radio 4 archive shows that some 334 castaways have chosen music by Verdi to accompany them on their desert island. Those selecting works by the great Italian include Harry Potter actor and West End star Zoë Wanamaker, who chose ‘Offertorio’ from the Requiem Mass; and Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, who explains that he was introduced to Verdi at as a teenager when his mother, on realizing he did not know 'Sempre libera' from La traviata, feared she was 'raising a barbarian'.

Giuseppe Verdi is currently one of the subjects of Deloitte Ignite 2013, a festival curated by Stephen Fry to mark the joint bicentenary of the births of both Verdi and Richard Wagner. As part of the final weekend, medical scientists will explore the reactions of opera fan Stephen Fry and opera novice Alan Davies to a performance of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra. The event, entitled The Science of Opera will be live-streamed on Twitter.